Computer-supported online public deliberation
Standing
Graduate (PhD)
Type of Proposal
Oral Research Presentation
Software prototype, visually and orally presented
Faculty
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty Sponsor
Hans Hansen
Proposal
It is important in democracies that public opinion be formed based on fact and taking into consideration perspectives, preferences, and values of others.
The proposed online discussion forum allows participants to propose policy issues for consideration. Then the participants may exchange pro and con arguments (and other kinds of considerations) in support of or opposed to policy positions. Betting markets are incorporated in a novel way, one or more markets for each argument. Participants attempt to predict the weight of evidence that will eventually be found to support each argument by making bets with play money. The system supports participants in specifying the logical relationships between their arguments, and it uses the logical relationships and the current price together with probability to infer the best estimate of the participants’ collective rational judgement. The market allows participants to regulate the discussion themselves, without moderators. They have an incentive to contribute arguments that will withstand counter-argument and be thought by others to be weighty considerations since that is the only way to increase the value of their bets and to prevent the value from decreasing. Bets may be ‘blocked’ if the arguments they represent are logically inconsistent with others the participant is betting on. This reduces the chance of irrational arguments dominating only because of their popular persuasiveness.
A software prototype will be presented.
Availability
any of those times; earlier times of day preferred
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Special Considerations
I intend to share my screen in order to show a software prototype and maybe some slides.
Computer-supported online public deliberation
It is important in democracies that public opinion be formed based on fact and taking into consideration perspectives, preferences, and values of others.
The proposed online discussion forum allows participants to propose policy issues for consideration. Then the participants may exchange pro and con arguments (and other kinds of considerations) in support of or opposed to policy positions. Betting markets are incorporated in a novel way, one or more markets for each argument. Participants attempt to predict the weight of evidence that will eventually be found to support each argument by making bets with play money. The system supports participants in specifying the logical relationships between their arguments, and it uses the logical relationships and the current price together with probability to infer the best estimate of the participants’ collective rational judgement. The market allows participants to regulate the discussion themselves, without moderators. They have an incentive to contribute arguments that will withstand counter-argument and be thought by others to be weighty considerations since that is the only way to increase the value of their bets and to prevent the value from decreasing. Bets may be ‘blocked’ if the arguments they represent are logically inconsistent with others the participant is betting on. This reduces the chance of irrational arguments dominating only because of their popular persuasiveness.
A software prototype will be presented.